The Landlord at Lions Head — Complete eBook

“I did try to get over it, and all I done was
to lose a night’s rest. Then, this morning,
when I see her settin’ there so cool and mighty
with the boarders, and takin’ the lead as usual,
I just waited till she got Whit’ell across,
and nearly everybody was there that saw what she done
to Jeff, and then I flew out on her.”

Westover could not suppress a laugh. “Well,
Mrs. Durgin, your retaliation was complete; it was
dramatic.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that,”
said Mrs. Durgin, rising and resuming her self-control;
she did not refuse herself a grim smile. “But
I guess she thought it was pretty perfect herself—­or
she will, when she’s able to give her mind to
it. I’m sorry for her daughter; I never
had anything against her; or her mother, either, for
that matter, before. Franky look after you pretty
well? I’ll send him up with your ice-water.
Got everything else you want?”

I should have to invent a want if I wished to complain,”
said Westover.

“Well, I should like to have you do it.
We can’t ever do too much for you. Well,
good-night, Mr. Westover.”

“Good’-night, Mrs. Durgin.”

XIII.

Jeff Durgin entered Harvard that fall, with fewer
conditions than most students have to work off.
This was set down to the credit of Lovewell Academy,
where he had prepared for the university; and some
observers in such matters were interested to note
how thoroughly the old school in a remote town had
done its work for him.

None who formed personal relations with him at that
time conjectured that he had done much of the work
for himself, and even to Westover, when Jeff came
to him some weeks after his settlement in Cambridge,
he seemed painfully out of his element, and unamiably
aware of it. For the time, at least, he had
lost the jovial humor, not too kindly always, which
largely characterized him, and expressed itself in
sallies of irony which were not so unkindly, either.
The painter perceived that he was on his guard against
his own friendly interest; Jeff made haste to explain
that he came because he had told his mother that he
would do so. He scarcely invited a return of
his visit, and he left Westover wondering at the sort
of vague rebellion against his new life which he seemed
to be in. The painter went out to see him in
Cambridge, not long after, and was rather glad to
find him rooming with some other rustic Freshman in
a humble street running from the square toward the
river; for he thought Jeff must have taken his lodging
for its cheapness, out of regard to his mother’s
means. But Jeff was not glad to be found there,
apparently; he said at once that he expected to get
a room in the Yard the next year, and eat at Memorial
Hall. He spoke scornfully of his boarding-house
as a place where they were all a lot of jays together;
and Westover thought him still more at odds with his
environment than he had before. But Jeff consented
to come in and dine with him at his restaurant, and
afterward go to the theatre with him.